Former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political party, already enfeebled by a chaotic national leadership election last year, faces further ridicule in a Paris town hall primary election which ends on Sunday, reports The Independent.
An “online-primary”, claimed as “fraud-proof” and “ultra secure”, has turned out to be vulnerable to multiple and fake voting. The four-day election has also the exposed the poisonous divisions created within the centre-right Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) by the law permitting gay marriage which took effect last week.
France’s first “electronic election” had been expected to anoint a rising star of the moderate right, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 39, as the party’s candidate in the election for mayor of Paris next spring. The former environment minister, known as “NKM”, was runaway favourite to win in the first round until she abstained in the final parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage in late April.
Several hard-right figures within the party have since urged militant opponents of gay marriage to swamp the open primary with votes for a relatively, obscure, young Paris city councillor, Pierre-Yves Bournazel, 35.
Read more of this report from The Independent.